New App Allows Sharing of Mobile Internet Access

A San Francisco-based company has come up with a new smartphone app that allows users to share mobile web access for free with other people nearby who have the same app.

Called Open Garden, the app forms a mesh network that enables smartphones in any location to use their formidable processing power to share access to the Internet.

The app works as a mesh network only if it has been installed by other people nearby to form the peer-to-peer connections. Even without having an access to Wi-Fi, the smartphone user with Open Garden can piggyback on the other person's connection. It is available for Android devices, Windows and Mac.

"Every smartphone is a computer and a router, so we thought it was the right time to interconnect all of these devices together to make general access more ubiquitous," said Micha Benoliel, co-founder and CEO of Open Garden told Reuters.